Like Real People Do
by DeliriousMess
Summary: Just a collection of various prompts I've filled relating to the pairing of Duke and Jennifer from Haven.
1. Chapter 1

Prompt: Duke and Jennifer holding hands in public for the first time and it feels like people can't stop staring at them

Jennifer felt as if everyone in the town square was looking at them as the walked around downtown Haven. She didn't have a _reason_ to, and it certainly wasn't as if anyone actually _was_ staring at them, but here she was, holding Duke's hand as they walked around downtown and feeling as if everyone's eyes were trained on them.

She ran her thumb absentmindedly over his as they walked, and glanced at him a few times.

As they reached the gazebo in the park, Duke pulled her into it, sitting them down on the bench.

"You wanna tell me what's been bothering you, Short Stack?" Duke asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

"Hm? No, nothing's…nothing's bothering me." She tried to lie, shifting closer to him.

"Uh-huh, you wanna try that lie again?" Duke asked, giving her a knowing smile.

She scrunched her nose at him, before turning thoughtful, "Does it…does it feel like everyone's _looking_ at us? I mean, I'm sure I'm just being…" she sighed, "I don't know what I'm being."

"Hey," he said quietly, squeezing her fingers to get her to look at him, "if anyone's looking at us, they're looking at _me_ and wondering what the hell a guy like me is doing with a girl like you."

She giggled at him, "A girl like me?"

"Mm," he nodded, running his fingers through her hair, "A nice girl, who wants to help people she's never met before, and who's smart and funny and who keeps me in my place."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." he grinned at her, "You know. Perfect."


	2. Chapter 2

Prompt: "We wore matching halloween costumes to this party" au + Dukifer

"Hey! Gomez!" One of the drunk party goers (some guy who threw a hockey mask on over his street clothes and called it good) called to Duke as he navigated his way through the crowd towards the alcohol, "I saw Morticia over there talkin' to some guy; better go get your wife!"

Duke just smiled and nodded at the guy, unsure really what he was talking about. Beer in hand, he surveyed the room to see what Hockey Mask had been talking about. Against the back wall was a slight woman, in a floor length, skin tight, black dress, looking incredibly uncomfortable as some guy in a Mario costume tried to talk to her.

Duke beelined towards her.

"…get out of here?" Mario was saying as Duke showed up. Mario glanced at him briefly before doing a double take.

Duke just smiled, "There you are, Tish."

The woman looked up at him, surprise clear on her face, before she beamed at him, "Gomez."

Duke carefully wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "Here I thought I'd lost you to the wilds of the darkness outside."

Mario shifted uncomfortably just in Duke's periphery as she said dramatically, "Never without you, mon amour."

Duke dramatically gasped, "Tish, that's French!"

Mario, thankfully, took the hint, and disappeared into the crowd. She laughed next to him, moving out from under his arm but still smiling at him, "Thanks! I didn't think he was ever gonna leave."

"No problem, besides, what kind of Gomez would I be if I let a Morticia, even one I don't know, in need of assistance?" Duke asked, smiling back at her.

She giggled at him, "I'm Jennifer."

"I'm Duke."


	3. Chapter 3

Prompt: Dukifer + "if found, please return to [name]" shirt and who wears the "i am [name]" shirt

Jennifer came onto the Rouge with two plastic bags and a grin.

Duke was sitting on the deck on a lawn chair and looked up at her from his paper. He arched a suspicious eyebrow, "What's in the bags, Short Stack?"

She kept grinning at him as she sat in front of him on the deck, not saying anything yet.

He folded the paper and set it aside as he leaned towards her, "And while I'm sure I should know better than to question a good thing; why are you smiling so big?"

She leaned towards him and kissed him, still smiling.

When they stopped, he smiled back at her, "Hi."

"Hi." She giggled lightly back.

"Ah, she speaks." Duke commented, leaning back slightly, "Maybe now she'll tell me what's in the bags."

"I got us something." She beamed at him.

"Oh I know that, I just want to know _what_ it is."

She reached into one of the bags and pulled out a shirt that said, "If found, please return to Duke."

Duke read it out loud, his confusion evident in his tone and features. He looked at her, "I don't get it."

She held up a finger, "Oh wait."

She rummaged from the same bag she'd pulled the first shirt from and pulled out another one that just said, "I'm Duke."

She was grinning at him but Duke was still confused.

"Do…do you get it?" She asked, suddenly nervous, "See? 'Cause you're always so worried about me? It's kind of an impermanent 'Property of Duke Crocker' brand that I'm pretty much certain you've thought about."

Duke studied her, "I wasn't thinking a _brand_ , per se, now a tattoo…"

She rolled her eyes at him before her eyes lit up as she remembered, "Oh wait! I have another set too,"

She tossed the "I'm Duke" t-shirt at him, hitting him lightly in the face with it. She threw the other shirt over her shoulder and pulled out the other shirts, one that said, "If found, please return to Jennifer" and one that said "I'm Jennifer."

He arched an eyebrow at her again, and she just grinned, "Goes both ways, Sailor."


	4. Chapter 4

Prompt: Dukifer +"I'm the grader for this class and you have literally the worst handwriting I have ever seen. I am tracking you down to warn you that if you turn in another pset like this I will have to give you a zero because I cannot understand anything you have written" au

The only thing that Jennifer could discern on the paper in front of her, thankfully, was the name. She sat in on the class the next day and surveyed the class. She just missed whatever roll call the Professor had called so she figured her best bet of finding this "Duke Crocker" was to sit in until the end of the class.

She took a seat in the front, just off to the side of where the Professor had set up to start the lecture, so it wasn't surprising that she felt eyes on her, but there was one student who seemed to be looking at her almost exclusively.

She glanced at the student in the back of the room, a fit gentleman with a moustache and goatee and long hair in a ponytail at the back of his head. He was almost too tall for the desks, causing him to sit with his legs splayed out in front of him, and he looked fairly disinterested in what the Professor had to say. When she caught his eye, she smiled at him, thinking he'd look away embarrassed like any other student would when she caught them staring at her, but he just smiled back at her, even daring to wink at her.

She rolled her eyes in response before focusing on what the Professor again. As the class ended and the students began gathering their things, Jennifer stood, "Could I speak with Duke Crocker?"

The student from earlier came up to her, grinning slyly at her, "You caught me at a disadvantage; you are?"

She gave him a courteous smile, "Jennifer."

He smiled at her before she held up a stack of papers to him, "Do you recognize these?"

Duke arched an eyebrow at the papers, skimming them briefly, "Yeah, that's my work."

Jennifer nodded, "It is. Would you like to know how I know?"

Duke shifted, his agitation starting to show through, "I'd imagine it has something to do with the fact that my name's on them."

"They do. Because that's the only part of these papers that I can _read_ , making them impossible to grade." She sighed, trying to pull in her own agitation so that they wouldn't start arguing in the middle of the classroom, "Look, I'm going to be honest with you, unless we figure something else out, I'm going to have to fail you."

Duke rubbed his forehead exasperatedly, "So what would you suggest?"

"Well," Jennifer sighed leaning against one of the desks, "either you start taking handwriting classes–"

"Would you be the one tutoring me?" He asked, the sly smile coming back.

She rolled her eyes and continued, "–or you just start typing up and sending your work to me."

He grinned at her, "Okay. So what if I give you my cell number, and you can text me your e-mail address?"

She chuckled at him, " _Or_ I can just write down my e-mail address for you now."

He sighed, "If that's all I'm going to get."

She smiled at him, "For now."


	5. Chapter 5

Prompt: "You live in the room next door to mine and you have been playing The Mountain Goats very loudly for the past five hours. Are you. I mean. Are you okay." Disclaimer: I had no earthly idea what/who The Mountain Goats were until I looked them up so I'm sorry if I have no understanding of what emotional state they're going for

Five hours. Five _hours_ of literally nothing but his neighbor blasting "The Mountain Goats." Her name was Jennifer, if he remembered right. He'd seen her around a few times, and she was always so polite and kind to the people around her. So clearly something was _very_ wrong for her to be blaring something like this so loudly.

Duke finally went and knocked on her door.

"Who's there?" came a rather drunk sounding voice.

"It's um, it's Duke. Uh, you live in the room next door to mine and you've been playing 'The Mountain Goats' very loudly for like the last five hours. Are you…? I mean, are you okay?" Duke yelled back through the door.

The music turned down as the door opened. She leaned against the door frame, her hair mussed and her clothes a little rumbled and he could spy a bottle of Honey Whiskey and a shot glass on her table.

"Okay?" She said, glaring at him, "Am I okay? Listen, pal, I am many things right now, but I am _not_ okay."

"Oh, no, see I was starting to get that, what with the Honey Whiskey on the table, and the fact that it looked like a small tornado whipped through her," Duke commented.

She glared at him for a moment longer before she turned from him, heading back into her room, but leaving the door open. Unsure of what else to do, Duke followed after, closing the door behind, "Is there anything I can…? I mean, do you wanna talk about it?"

She sank into the couch sadly, "Not really, y'know?"

Duke sat down next to her and she rested her head on his shoulder, "He was a dick anyway."

Duke tentatively wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she curled up a little more into his side, "When was the last time you ate, Short Stack?"

She lightly hit him in the chest, "Don't call me that, I'm not that short."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

She paused thinking, "I dunno; a while?"

"And how many shots have you had since you got home?"

Jennifer shrugged, "Enough?"

"Okay," Duke said, shifting slightly so he could grab his phone from his pocket, "I'm going to order us a pizza, we're going to stay on this couch, you are _definitely_ going to stop drinking, and we're going to watch something mindless; whether or not you tell me all the grisly details about this asshole is up to you, but if you choose to, just know that I'll probably kick his ass at a later date."

She chuckled at him before kissing his cheek, "Thank you."

"Any time, Short Stack."


	6. Chapter 6

Prompt: Dukifer (Naudrey if you want as well) + playing Monopoly + I want a freaking divorce and I better leave this boat before things get intense + making out after they apologize to each other

None of them really remembered who's idea it had been to play Monopoly, but at this point, it didn't really matter because they were all pissed.

At first, it was harmless, because after all, what's a few bad dice rolls among friends?

As the game progressed, however, things got a bit… _heated._

By the end of it, Nathan and Audrey had to leave before one of them misused their position as a detective ("You realize I could send you to _actual_ jail, right?"), and Jennifer had to take a couple of laps around the Rouge to try to calm down, mostly because she'd yelled something about wanting a divorce and while everyone knew she was just mad, no one really wanted to test her.

Which she thought she had by the time she made it back to the stateroom where Duke was sitting and drinking some of his scotch, but unfortunately when she saw him, her agitation immediately flared back up.

She sat next to him on the couch, crossing her arms and glaring at him, "I can't _believe_ you thought I was taking your money."

Duke let his head fall back so that it rested on the back of the couch as he sighed, "Short Stack, I'm _sorry_ , I was–"

"And then you snatched Fifth Avenue right from _under_ me!" She interrupted, taking his glass from him and taking her own drink.

"You had all of Park!" Duke tried to counter.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she finished her drink, "Oh, don't give me that; when I snatched that out from under Nathan and Audrey you looked like you wanted to make out with me right there."

He laughed despite himself and reached out to run his fingers through her hair until his hand rested on her neck, "You know, that sounds like a lot more fun than still being mad about that stupid board game."

She smirked at him as she leaned towards him and kissed his neck, "Yeah?"

He bowed his head to catch her mouth with his, "Definitely."

She giggled against his lips, and decided that she agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

Prompt: Modern day Cinderella roller coaster AU

"Nathan, quit being such a baby!" Duke was saying to his friend as they walked passed one of the biggest rides at the park. He turned to Audrey, Nathan's girlfriend, "Audrey, c'mon, back me up on this."

Audrey just smirked as she took a bite of cotton candy, biting her tongue.

Duke rolled his eyes at her, "As helpful as always, Parker." He turned back to Nathan, "A roller coaster isn't gonna kill–Ow!"

As the words left his mouth, something hit him in the back of the head. _Hard._

"Aw Jesus, what the hell?" Duke said as he looked around him to see what it was that hit him, while Nathan was actually laughing. At him, of course, but at least he was _laughing_.

Finally, Duke spied a floral print flat, resting on the ground just a bit to his left. He picked it up before glancing up at the ride that he'd previously been trying to get Nathan to go on. It didn't take a detective to figure out what happened.

"Some girl must've lost her shoe on that ride." Nathan pointed out, before smirking at Duke, "Won't kill ya, huh?"

Audrey grinned, "He's not dead; he's just been beaned with his own Cinderella story."

Duke turned the shoe over in his hands, and smirked, "Cinderella, huh?"

Audrey tugged on Nathan's arm, leading him away while Duke started scanning the crowd that was coming off the ride. She called over her shoulder at him, "Just gotta find her, Prince Charming."

* * *

Jennifer had kept her eyes squeezed closed the entire ride and squeezed Holly's hand so hard that, according to her, "I'm pretty sure you broke my fingers."

So she didn't notice her shoe was gone until she took her first shaky step off the ride. She looked at her foot and groaned loudly, "Aw _hell_."

Holly, still high on adrenaline from the ride, basically threw herself onto Jennifer's back as she got off the ride herself, laughing, "What's the problem, darlin'?"

"The _problem_ ," Jennifer said as they exited the ride, "Is that I lost my damn _shoe_ because of the ride you forced me on!"

Holly laughed, still keeping her arm around Jennifer's shoulders, "Oh I'm sorry, Jen. I'll buy you another pair."

Jennifer sighed, "Okay that solves my problem for _later_ ; I can't very well spend the rest of the day with only one shoe!"

Holly just squeezed her shoulders, "I'm sure there's a pair of really awful sandals we can find in the gift shop."

Jennifer mockingly glared at her, "I _loved_ those shoes."

Holly rolled her eyes before something in the crowd caught her eye. A slow, wide grin spread across her face, earning a confused look from Jennifer. Holly gently turned Jennifer in the direction she was looking, and whispered in her ear, "Looks like Prince Charming's got that figured out, Cinderella."

There was a tall, remarkably attractive man standing under one of the trees across from the exit of the ride, and he was holding her other shoe.

Something about her caught his eye and he smiled, waving at her to come towards her. She heard Holly laugh behind her as she gently pushed her towards him. She walked nervously to him, glancing back at Holly as she went before he met her halfway.

He smiled at her, gesturing with the shoe, "Cinderella, I presume."

She smiled nervously in front of him, placing her unshoed foot over her shoed one; he was looking at her like he thought she actually was the princess he called her, "Only if that makes you Prince Charming."

He chuckled before he crouched in front of her to help her put her shoe back on, "I don't know about that. By day, though, I go by Duke."

She giggled back, blushing, as she steadied herself by placing her hands on Duke's shoulders-trying really hard not to show that how impressed she was at feeling the muscles there-and slid her foot back into her shoe, "And when the wicked step-family isn't tormenting me, I go by Jennifer."

Duke looked from her feet to her, beaming at her, "A perfect fit."

Her blush deepened as she quickly took her hands off his shoulders and nervously tucked her hair behind her ears, "Um. Thank you. For getting my shoe. Where'd you find it?"

Duke laughed as he stood back up, "It kind of found me. Hit me square in the back of the head."

Jennifer gasped and touched his arms before she could think to stop herself, "Oh god, I'm _so_ sorry! Are you okay?"

He laughed, liking the physical contact, "I'll live."

She smiled at him before realizing that she was unnecessarily touching him and pulled her hand back to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear again.

" _But_ ," he continued, taking the slightest step closer to her, "If you _really_ want to make it up to me, I could go for an ice cream."

She arched an eyebrow at him, but allowed herself to smile back at him, "Oh well if it's the _only_ way to make it up to you…"

He grinned as he fell into step next to her, heading for a nearby ice cream vender, "Oh I never said it was the _only_ way."


	8. Chapter 8

Prompt: Dukifer + Drunk and sloppy kisses and they're so out of their mind and talking a lot of nonsense

She didn't know who's idea it'd been to make a drinking game out of the bad television show they were watching, but by the end of it they were both pleasantly drunk. They were stretched out on the couch as the next show came on, and Duke was on top of her with his face buried in the crook of her neck while she ran her hand from the back of his head to partially down his back and then back up again.

"You smell so good," he was mumbling against her skin, the television long since forgotten, "like…like sugar and vanilla and _warm_."

She giggled as she ran her fingers through his hair on the back of his head, making small circles into his scalp with her fingers and earning a contented sound (a purr?) from him, "So I smell like a cookie?"

The honey whiskey in her stomach made her giddy and had her feeling like all the heat in her body was coming from her middle. It'd been a long time since she'd felt this happily drunk, and she was surprised to find that she'd missed it. Though, maybe what she'd missed was having someone to get this kind of drunk _with_. Duke didn't answer her and instead kissed her neck. Or made as if that's what he _wanted_ to do. His lips were brushing her neck, making his moustache and goatee tickle her neck, but she wasn't sure if that counted as a _kiss_.

She giggled again, scrunching her shoulder and neck to try to move away from him tickling her. It didn't work very well, because she felt him smile against her neck before trying again along her jaw, "Nah, cookies ain't as sweet."

She laughed at him as he "kissed" up by her ear only to go back down along her jaw, "Oh, you _must_ be drunk to say something _that_ lame."

"'M not drunk." He slurred in between kisses, "You smell…you smell like _you_. And that's fantastic."

"Mm," she hummed back, closing her eyes and placing her free hand on his neck as her other hand played with his hair. Everything he did, everywhere he touched felt so _good_ and she wasn't sure if it was just because it was him or the whiskey, but she wanted him to kiss her _properly_ , "Nope you're definitely drunk; can't even kiss me right."

He lifted slightly to look at her and to start placing those "kisses" on her face, "Can too."

She smirked at him, feeling her eyelids getting heavy. She tried to shake the sleepiness from her head, "Cannot."

"Can _too_." He tried to affirm, his words slurring worse than before.

She was pretty sure he was feeling the same drowsiness that she was at this point but she still tried to give him a smile that she hoped was wily, "Then prove it."

He eyed her lazily before bumping his nose against hers, and placed a sloppy kiss on her lips. She laughed through the kiss before pushing him off of her gently. He complied, rolling off her slightly so that she could stand. She offered her hand to him, even as she swayed slightly, "C'mon, Sailor, 'less go t'bed."

He nodded as he stood, wrapping his arms around her, and swayed towards their room, placing lazy kisses on her head as they went and mumbling about how _fantastic_ she was.


	9. Chapter 9

Prompt: College!AU where Jennifer is trying to pay attention in class but Duke keeps throwing paper balls at her.

Jennifer liked being early to her classes. It usually gave her a chance to get work done, or to just disengage for a bit before bringing herself back to the matter at hand. Today, it offered the chance to study right before a test that she'd be taking shortly.

It was a fairly large room, which only made it's vacancy that much more pronounced as she walked in, and Jennifer usually liked to sit towards the front; less distractions that way.

Jennifer spread her textbooks and notebooks out on the desk in front of her and started flipping through her notes, circling and starring things that she didn't immediately remember in her review. She became so enthralled in her study, that she almost missed the first paper ball that rushed passed her and on to the floor.

She glanced at it, her brow furrowing in confusion as she looked from it to behind her, surveying the room. At first glance, she didn't see anyone else in the room, which only heightened her confusion. She narrowed her eyes at the room, and mumbled under her breath, "I don't know what's happening here, but it better not be."

She went back to her studying, keeping her ears open for anything out of the ordinary, when another paper ball hit her square in the back of the head. She slammed her pencil onto the desk as she stood from the desk, "Alright look—"

Another one hit her right in the forehead, cutting her off, and was accompanied by a laugh that she recognized. She glowered at the man at the back of the room as he grinned at her, "Look at what? All I see's a girl who doesn't know how to relax."

She turned back to her notebook and ripped out a blank piece of paper, "Well, it's hard to relax," she said, crumbling the paper in hands, "when _someone_ won't let me study in peace."

As she finished her sentence, she turned and threw her own paper ball at him, hitting him squarely in his face, earning a shocked look from him. She mimicked his expression, letting out a disbelieving laugh; her aim was _never_ that good.

"Are we really gonna do this?" Duke asked, his grin turning sly.

She grinned back, "I think so."

By the time the professor showed up, the room was a war zone.


	10. Chapter 10

Prompt: Dukifer + making Duke some of her favorite recipes from when she was little

It was one of the rare days that Jennifer made it back to the Rogue before Duke. She wondered around the stateroom of the Rogue, feeling restless, when her stomach growled. She realized she hadn't really eaten much of anything that day, and that she was sufficiently starved. She opened the fridge and browsed what they had to work with.

As she looked, she started thinking about her mom and the recipes that she'd often make up on the fly. There was one recipe, oh it used to be Jennifer's _favorite_ ; it was a really bastardized version of sweet and sour chicken as a sauce that was poured over rice, or egg noodles, if they had them.

She started pulling what she'd need from the fridge and started on the recipe. As she worked, her mind wondered back to her childhood, and her memories of her mother. Her mom used to make this to celebrate Jennifer's accomplishments, or whenever there was something to be excited about, other times it was to comfort Jennifer because her mom knew how happy it made her. For her, the meal was like going back home.

As some of the onions sauteed in the oil, she was transported back into the kitchen of her childhood. She remembered sitting at the table, watching her mom work, and listening to her hum to herself while her dad talked about his day at the office. She scraped the rest of the onions into the pan. She tried to remember how old she'd been in that memory, but, truth be told, she could've been any age and it still would've been the same.

She missed her parents deeply in that moment, and she suddenly wasn't sure if she was crying from the onions or from that fact.

She paused for a moment and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to calm herself back down. She wasn't sure how long she stood like that before she felt an arm wrap loosely around her waist. Another hand pushed the hair away from the side of her neck as she leaned back into Duke. She smiled, eyes still closed, as she felt familiar lips against her neck and travel up to her ear, "What's cookin', good lookin'?"

She laughed as she turned in Duke's arms and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to kiss him properly. He smiled into the kiss, and ran his fingers through her hair, causing her to relax further into him. When they pulled apart, he smiled at her, cupping her cheek in his hand and noting the dampness there, "Hi."

She smiled back and pressed her forehead against his, "Hi."

"You wanna tell me," Duke said, wiping what was left of her tears away from her cheeks, "what's with the water works? And what that wonderful thing is that I'm smelling."

"Just the onions," she replied as she pressed the back of her wrist against her eye briefly. She smiled again as she turned back to the counter to start cutting the chicken breasts, "You hungry? It's a recipe of my mom's."

He kissed her cheek, "Definitely. Need any help?"

She shook her head, "Nah, Mom's recipes are usually pretty easy for one person to handle."

He nodded as he walked towards the breakfast nook and took a seat, "So what is it?"

"Sweet and sour chicken." She answered simply.

Duke gave her back a skeptical look, "Sweetheart, I've _made_ sweet and sour chicken and that is _not_ how you do that."

She laughed as she added the chicken to the pan, "I didn't say it was _authentic_ sweet and sour chicken."

Duke chuckled back as she continued, "My mom repurposed this recipe using what a bag of frozen chicken breasts had on it when she and Dad were in college."

"Ah, so it's Poor College Student Sweet and Sour Chicken." Duke commented, smirking as she glanced at him over her shoulder.

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it, Sailor." She jokingly chastised as she added soy sauce and lemon juice to the chicken and onions, "This is my absolute _favorite_ recipe of my mom's."

His smile softened, "Yeah?"

She nodded, "Mm-hm. She used to make it to celebrate when I'd done something important, and when I'd come home from college for a weekend or holiday, she'd always make it on my first night home."

She stirred the contents of the pan, "I dunno. It was just always something that made me feel like I was really _home_. When Holly and I had our first apartment, this was what I made our first night there." She smiled at the memory as she grabbed the ketchup bottle and squirted it three long times into the pan, "She'd made a joke about how she got a steal of a roommate just because I was willing to cook and share. I told her that if that place was going to be our home, we needed to have a good meal."

As she capped the bottle and started stirring the pan again, she said, "And, well, since _this_ is my home _now_ …"

He stood from the nook and walked behind her to press a kiss to her head. She closed her eyes and smiled at the kiss. She held the spoon up to him to taste it and he did. She watched his face eagerly as he exaggeratedly smacked his lips together to taste the sauce. He grinned at her, "Not bad for Poor College Student Sweet and Sour Chicken."

She grinned back, "You're damn right."


	11. Chapter 11

Prompt: Dukifer + "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

In all honesty, Jennifer was surprised it hadn't happened sooner. She'd been in Haven all of a month and she'd seen things that she was sure would rattle a normal person, let alone someone who's initiation into Troubled life involved thinking she was crazy for six months.

A panic attack had been biding it's time in her for a while now. She was just glad, distantly, that it only reached it's full swing as she pulled up to the Rouge. She'd left the Herald, feeling anxious about the amount of research she was going to have to do to on Haven in order to come up with plausible cover stories for the Trouble-related chaos but who can possibly come up with a cover story for all those _deaths_? And there's only going to be _more_ and more suffering and more _guns_ and more people looking at _her_ and asking her what she _hears_ and–

And she couldn't breathe. Her heart was hammering in her chest, it felt like her lungs were in a vice, she was crying so hard she couldn't see straight, and she was shaking so badly she was surprised that she actually managed to have a grip on her phone tight enough to hit her speed dial to call Duke.

He picked up within the first couple of rings and sounded excited, "Hey! You headed home?"

"U-u-um," Jennifer stammered, barely managing to form the words.

"Jennifer? Jennifer, what's wrong?" Duke asked, already sensing that something was very wrong.

"A-a-are you–are you b-busy?" She barely gasped between words.

"Where are you? What happened?" Duke asked, using his "I'm already out the door just give me a direction" voice.

"I-I-I'm h-here, I'm-I'm in m-my c-car but-but I d-don't th-think I c-c–I can't–" before she could get the words out he'd opened her car door, startling her more, but she was already reaching for him as he reached around her and undid her seat belt.

"Hey," He said quietly as her arms trembled around his neck, "it's okay, you're okay."

She was shaking so violently that Duke didn't even bother asking if she could stand on her own, he just hooked one arm under her legs and wrapped the other around her waist. He carried her from the car as she kept trying to talk to him, taking them down into the stateroom of the Rouge.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry, I-I was j-just–I c-couldn't–Th-there's j-just so–there's s-so _much_ and-and I-I d-don't–how d-do you–,"

He sat them on the couch, Jennifer curling up into him, as he rocked her gently, "Sh, sh, Jen, it's okay."

She shook her head against his neck, still shaking and tightening her grip on him, " _No_. No, i-it's _not_ , Duke! Wh-what if y-you–I-I d-don't want to _lose_ y–"

He shifted slightly, nudging her head off of his shoulder, and held her face in his hands, "Hey. None of that."

"But–"

"Sh. Jennifer I'm here. I'm _right_ here. I'm not going anywhere."

She touched his face as she stared at him, her breathing slowing, if only slightly, and she nodded in response. He smiled slightly at her and kissed her eyes, swiping at the tears under her eyes with his thumbs, "Just…just focus on breathing, okay?"

She nodded again, moving her head from his hands so it rested on his shoulder and curling further into his lap. He rubbed her back as she took shaking breaths to try to calm down. Slowly, her breathing evened, until she fell asleep, her arms still tight around his neck.


	12. Chapter 12

Prompt: Duke and Jennifer decorating a tiny Christmas tree and Jennifer pulls out this really ornate angel to put on the top of the tree and she hands it to Duke and tells him to make a wish on it because that's what her mom used to do

Duke didn't even know _where_ she'd been hiding the artificial tree that was now on his coffee table, but regardless, it was there now and she was going to decorate it; even if most of the ornaments seemed to be bigger than the tree itself.

She rummaged through the paper company box next to her, humming _It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas_ to herself as she grabbed an ornament box and began to open it.

Duke sat next to her, handing her a mug of tea. She took it, grinning at him, "Oh what, no hot chocolate?"

"Figured I'd save that until we got a little closer to the actual holiday." Duke commented, holding his own mug up for her.

She clinked her mug against his, smirking, "It's never too early for hot chocolate."

"Mm-hm," Duke hummed back skeptically, leaning forward to look through the box by her feet. Noting the sheer number of ornaments, and the box that she'd tucked under the table yet to be dealt with, he commented, "Looks like you've got more ornaments than you have tree here."

She smiled fondly as she held up an ornament of Disney character and hung it carefully from one of the small branches of the tree, "Yeah I know. I don't need all of them to go up, but it'd be nice if some of them made it."

"Are you really going to make me ask?"

She gave him a confused look, taking a drink of her tea, "What about?"

" _Why_ do you have so many ornaments?"

"Oh!" She laughed, setting the mug on the table next to the tree, "It was a tradition my parents started when they were first living together. Every Christmas, we'd each get a new ornament to put on the tree. I have an ornament for every Christmas that I've been alive basically."

Her smile turned sad as she added, "When Mom died, I made sure that I kept all the ornaments that she and Dad had collected. So it looks like a lot but it's not. Not really."

He rubbed her back briefly and she closed her eyes and sighed. She leaned down and opened the other box to reveal a rather ornate, gold angel, holding a pair of bells on a string in its ceramic hands. She smiled fondly at the angel before holding it in both of her hands and closing her eyes.

Duke studied her for a second, confused at the ritual he was seeing but feeling as if he was seeing something private and privileged, when she opened her eyes and held the angel out to him, saying, "Make a wish."

His confusion only deepened, "What?"

She reached for one of his hands and placed it on the angel, "When I was little and Mom and I would decorate the tree, when we would get to the angel, we would each hold it and make a wish on it before we put it on top of the tree. When I was little I used to wish for things, but as I got older, I'd wish for good things in the coming year. It…I dunno, there was just something magical about the whole thing. Even when I got older, and I knew there probably wasn't anything too mystical about the angel, it was still comforting to do it."

Duke took the angel from her and looked down at its painted face, "It ever work?"

She just smiled at him, "I guess I never really put much thought into it. And it never really mattered; it was always more about the tradition than anything else I guess."

He looked between her and the angel, his skepticism clear on his face. She nudged him gently, "Go on, she won't bite. She's been watching out for me since I was little."

He smirked at her before looking at the angel, "Alright…little…angel person. I wish–"

"Not out loud." Jennifer interrupted.

"What?"

She gave him an incredulous look, "Don't you know the rules of wish making? If you say it out loud, it won't come true!"

"You just said–"

"Who's tradition is this?"

Duke sighed, conceding, "Alright, alright."

He held the angel in his hands and closed his eyes, though his mind was drawing a blank on what he could wish for.

He heard Jennifer start to hum a new song, _It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year_ this time, and smiled to himself.

He opened his eyes and carefully placed the angel on the tree. Once it was secure, he reached over and wrapped his arms around Jennifer, and pulled her close to him.

Who needed a wish anyway.


	13. Chapter 13

Prompt: Things you said with too many miles between us Set in a Long Distance Relationship!AU that I've been sitting on for awhile now.

Jennifer didn't want to admit that she'd been waiting for this phone call all day–after all, it was only his first day away, it wasn't like he was on the other side of the world–well maybe he was, it was hard to tell when it came to his "below board" activities–but damn it if that wasn't exactly what had been happening. Every time her phone even blipped her heart leapt. Unfortunately, it was often only her phone telling her that one of her gaming apps had refilled her lives.

And every time, once she'd put the phone back on the counter in the shop, Adelaide would just _smirk_ at her. Jennifer, of course, would then just glare at her cousin. Then a lull would happen where she wouldn't look at her phone, and then something would sound like a _buzz_ and then she'd be right back to snatching her phone off the counter.

Okay, so maybe more of her motivations had to do with her being worried about him. Not that there was anything that she needed to be overtly scared of for him–he was a big boy, after all, and he had been for most of his life–but worry she did.

So when her phone did finally start ringing with a call from Duke, she didn't bother trying to hide it from him, "Duke?"

"Hey," he sighed back on the other side. He sounded relieved, tired, like he was smiling, but most importantly, like he was fine.

Jennifer smiled at the phone, ignoring Adelaide's obnoxious (and rather juvenile) kissing noises as she walked back towards her room, "Hey yourself; how're you doing?"

"I'm–"

"If the rest of that is 'fine' I'm going to be mysteriously busy when you finally come back." She warned, sitting down onto her bed.

He chuckled on the other side of the line, "Well then it's a good thing I was, of course, going to be completely up-front with you and tell you that I'm tired from a long day but that I'm all the better for finally getting to hear your voice."

She laughed back at that, "Oh, of course."

They talked for awhile; Duke vaguely about what he'd been up to since he docked in his new, equally vague, location, and Jennifer about what was new at the shop with Adelaide and Brielle.

It was all simple small talk that they both enjoyed, just hearing each other talk. Jennifer stretched out on her bed as a lull occurred in their conversation and they just listened to each other breathe.

"I miss you." She said quietly.

"I miss you too." He said back, "Why didn't you come with me, again?"

Jennifer sighed and grabbed one of her pillows to curl onto her side, "Because my cousin's paranoid beyond reason and you told me that it would be a fast job and that you needed me safe while you did it."

Duke sighed, "Ah the one time my protectiveness worked against me."

She giggled at him before she turned serious again, "Speaking of protectiveness: Are you being careful? I mean, I know this is just your life and everything–I do, I get it and I'm not asking for a change or anything I just–"

"Jennifer." He said gently, quieting her and she wished desperately that he was here with her or that she was with him, just something where his arms would be around her and where she wouldn't be staring at a wide expanse of empty bed next to her, "I'm okay. I'm being careful, I promise."

She nodded, "Okay."

There was another brief pause, and she absently reached to pick at the blanket that covered the side of the bed that Duke usually slept on when he was there with her.

"You know, I, ah, I didn't realize how big my bed was until I'd gotten used to you being in it," he commented on the phone.

Jennifer laughed despite herself, "Here I was thinking the same thing."

Duke laughed as well even as another lull happened in their conversation.

"Come home soon, Duke." She said, curling up more on her side, "Come back to me."

"As fast as I can, love. Just as fast I can."


	14. Chapter 14

Prompt: Okay, but Jennifer often stealing Duke's phone and taking selfies and he never has the guts to delete them because his tiny girlfriend is too adorable.

Duke didn't realize he'd left his phone at home until about midday when realized he hadn't heard from Jennifer since that morning. He made it home that night and found her curled on the sofa going over story notes. She looked up when he came into the state room and grinned at him, "Hey."

He grinned back, making a beeline for her and leaning down to kiss her, "Hey yourself. Have a good day?"

"Eh, you know, covering up Troubles, keeping Vince and Dave from killing each other, missing my lunch call from my boyfriend, the usual." She grinned at him.

He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers, "Yeah, I know. I forgot my phone in my rush this morning. But if it'll make it up to you, I'll make dinner?"

She gave his lips a quick peck, "Deal."

He smiled back at her and headed towards the kitchen. He started pulling out ingredients and things to start in on dinner. Once the chicken breasts were sizzling on the griddle, he spotted his phone on the counter. He was fairly certain he'd left his phone on the nightstand table, so he shot a speculative glance at Jennifer who was now gnawing on a pen cap as she studied a copy of an old edition of the Herald. She wasn't paying any attention to him, so he turned his speculation towards the phone.

He picked it up and started clicking through it, checking for any new texts or missed calls. Nothing really important there–a couple of calls from Nathan but that was probably nothing. He set it back on the counter to finish cooking. Once it was mostly finished, he had a moment before it was completely ready so he clicked through to his pictures. He was surprised to see a series of pictures of Jennifer that she'd taken. They ran the gamut from her just smiling at the camera, to her making goofy faces at the camera.

He chuckled to himself at the pictures, drawing the attention of Jennifer. She smiled at him, "Now are those chicken breasts trying to push me out of my spot as the funny one in this relationship? 'Cause I'm gonna be pissed if that's true."

He just laughed at her and held his phone up to her, "Don't worry, love, you're still the funny one."

She laughed back and climbed to her feet, "Well I had to make sure you remembered what I look like. God forbid one of us forgets, right?"

"Right." Duke sighed to himself, setting the phone back down on the coffee table next to his tumbler of scotch as he rubbed his face with his hands. Jennifer had been gone for over six months and he still couldn't bring himself to delete any of the pictures she'd taken.

"God forbid." He mumbled, as he downed the tumbler.


	15. Chapter 15

Prompt: For you tragic OTP, imagine that person A gets a chance to go back in time and change what happened to person B. This got real dicey in it's narration–have you ever tried to talk to yourself? It's not easy.

Duke would've asked why, or even how, but for once, this was a Haven Moment that he was willing to just let happen.

He was sitting in his truck, which would normally be fine, but he could tell it was after Audrey had talked Aiden Driscoll down, and he and Nathan had had their brief heart-to-heart about how Duke wasn't so selfish as to want Nathan dead to get to Audrey.

He knew this, because his past self from that day was walking towards him while on the phone–making the call to Jennifer to tell her that he didn't want her to get off the Rouge, and asking her to come back so he could try to explain himself to her. This Duke, the Duke who wasn't originally here when this happened the first time, quickly pieced together why he'd been sent to _this_ moment, and not to one closer to the Lighthouse and losing her. He'd been given a second chance, and he wanted to do it right.

His past self had been so wrapped up in his phone call, that he didn't notice himself sitting in the passenger seat.

As he reached to put the key in the ignition, his past self seemed to finally realize that something was wrong. When he turned and looked at him, Duke already knew what he was going to say.

"What the ever loving–"

"We're having a Haven Moment and we're just going to let it happen." Duke interrupted himself quickly. He could see himself gearing up to say something more–and probably pull a gun on him (which really would only complicate this situation further but arguing with yourself when you have a gun on yourself probably won't help the situation anyway), so he spoke quickly, "You're going to kiss her."

His past self looked at him in surprise, "What?"

"You're going to kiss her." Duke repeated, "You're going to take her in your arms, you're going to carry her to your bed, and you are going to show her how you've felt about her since you first saw her."

His past self didn't say anything to that, just continued to give him a calculating look. Carefully, his past self said, "She's dead. Isn't she."

It wasn't a question, but he answered him anyway, "Yes."

They stared at each other for another moment before he added, "When you kiss her, don't stop there."

At his past self's confused look, he said, "Get her as far away from this town as possible, and don't look back. Audrey's back, you've done everything you could need to–it's time to stop being the schmuck that has to sacrifice everything good in our life."

His past self looked at him incredulously, "Why? Why not just send her away like we wanted to before and stay here?"

He leveled his gaze at himself, "Because trying to send her away ripped us apart. Because, just this once, we _are_ that selfish."

His past self looked like he was going to ask him something else, but Duke only said, "She's worth it. And so much more."

Duke could feel a change coming, and could feel that his time in this moment was coming to a close, so he repeated, "Get both of you away from here and never look back."

And with that, his past disappeared, and he was left hoping that things had changed.


	16. Chapter 16

Prompt: Going away for war!au

Jennifer had spent the last six months in a desperate state of complete denial. But the date on the calendar was starting to betray her. In two weeks, Duke was supposed to be sent away. She had been happy, initially, when he'd told her he wanted to enlist. He'd had a rough go of things before they met, and when they'd started to get serious, he'd told her that he wanted to be someone she would be proud of.

And at that point in his life, after the less reputable things he'd done, the only viable thing he _could_ do, was enlist.

But now that they were staring down the barrel of him being sent away, of him being shot at, of him going to a place where there was a very real probability that he would die alone and afraid, she wished he'd stayed less reputable.

He'd had a boat and had, previously, traveled everywhere that the ocean could take him. He'd been good at disappearing, at running away, and he'd given it up so he could be someone who deserved her. But now all she wanted was for them to run away and disappear.

She'd been thinking about it for weeks, but she hadn't dared to voice it to him yet.

Until tonight.

They were lying in bed, bodies curled towards each other like a pair of petals drying in the sun, and she was watching his face. He'd closed his eyes long before her, more ready and willing to chase sleep down than she was yet, and she was trying to commit to memory how at ease he looked, all that tension that seemed to constantly be etched into his face lately was gone. She loved the way his long lashes fanned gently against the tops of his cheeks, just…how at ease he looked sleeping next to her.

She reached out and gently traced his face, from his forehead, down his cheek and jawline, until her fingers rested against his chin. She'd been watching the skin where her fingers touched, so she didn't noticed when his eyes opened until she finally looked back up at him. His dark eyes glittered from the starlight coming from the window behind her, and were somehow still so warm and gentle even in the pale light.

"What're you doing?" he asked, his voice gruff from almost catching sleep.

She'd wanted to say, "Trying to figure out how to ask you to either run away with me or just to stay with me" but instead, all that came out was, "Stay."

Something in her tone prompted him to wake up more from his pre-sleep daze. He gave her a confused looked, "What?"

There was no point in stopping it now, not so close to goodbye, not when he was looking at her with stars in his eyes, and not when she was so scared of losing him it kept her awake even when he was still right next to her, "Don't go. Don't leave. We could…we could run away. Just…Stay with me."

He studied her for a long time. He carefully reached out and ran his fingers through her hair before he whispered, "Jennifer, what you're asking from me…I told you I wouldn't be that person again."

"Unless I asked." She pointed out quickly before her throat could constrict too tightly from the desperation of what she was really asking him for.

He sighed heavily but conceded, "Unless you asked."

They stared at each other for another long moment, so that anxiety coiled around Jennifer's stomach and made her feel sick–she knew what she was asking him and she hated herself for it. He'd come so far, he'd done so much, he'd distanced himself from that life and from being someone who would go AWOL without a second thought because she had asked him to; and here she was, asking him to forget all of that just because she didn't want to lose him.

Who was she to ask this of him?

The only one who could.

"Are you asking?" He asked, trying to give her an out, a chance to walk away from this conversation if she wanted. And she loved him so much more for that. And she couldn't lose him.

"Yes." She said as firmly as she could.

The word landed in the space between them, having fallen so heavily that Jennifer was sure that she heard it 'thud' against the mattress.

Much more quietly, as if she were trying to nudge the 'yes' towards him, she added, "I'm asking. Run away with me."

He moved closer to her then, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close against him. She curled into him instinctively, and felt him place a kiss on the top of her head.

"Okay."


	17. Chapter 17

Prompt: "It had no eyes"

Jennifer's lying with her head on his stomach, looking up at the ceiling, and his fingers are in her hair. It's warm in the room– _their_ room, Duke reminds himself, and he smiles. He twines one of the dark curls around his fingers–or maybe it twines itself around his fingers, claiming him in some way that he's never been claimed before.

Gently.

Quietly.

With a whispered request.

He might also be a little drunk–it was a summer day and their drinks were always cold and plentiful–but she's so soft and is talking to him gently so what does being a little drunk matter?

His free hand is resting on her stomach, sandwiched in between hers, and he could feel her small fingers alternating between rubbing between his knuckles and just tracing patterns on the back of his hand. She was steady in the light press of her fingers on his skin, consistent, strong.

Warm.

"I used to have this dream," She's saying to him in the dark, her voice slow, soft, and winding around him, "well, I guess it was more of a nightmare."

He keeps his hand moving steadily through her hair, partly in an automatic motion but mostly to comfort her. Even though he couldn't see her face and all he could feel was her hair and her hands, there was a tension that sprang up in her hands as they worked over him.

"I…I would be in this old, old house–my parents and I would go on these road trips growing up and my mom was just fascinated with abandoned places and we'd walk through them sometimes and there'd just be this feeling of not belonging that would cling to you–anyway." She's rambling a little, and he knows she knows it, but he keeps his touch consistent, even squeezing the hand that's under his on her stomach.

"So I would be in this old, old house, and I'd be looking for something. Always, always looking for some thing–even though I never knew what I was supposed to be looking for. And I'd avoid the second floor for as long as possible because once I went up those stairs, everything would change."

He keeps listening to her, closing his eyes and letting himself envision her dream. He sees a large, midwestern style home, with faded paint and missing windows and doors. Something open and missing, with a front like a scared face. For some reason, everything was bathed in yellow light–something in her voice always did that–which somehow made the image that much more haunting. He sees her walking nervously around the wrecked first floor, stepping carefully over ransacked furniture, graffiti on the walls–she walks the whole circle of the first floor, always coming back to the dilapidated stairs across from the front door.

"Once I climbed those stairs, I would just feel like I was being pressed down on. And there were all these doors but only one's open at the end of the hallway and it was cracked and I could just barely hear something. It sounded like my name."

The hand under his is curled in a fist now, while the one on top keeps trying to continue her caress over his knuckles, but he only starts to try to ease the tension in her hand under his.

In his mind, he sees a long, dark hallway–everything was painted in a midnight blue now as she talked, such a fearful contrast to the yellow outside–and there she is, walking down it towards a cracked door that in another life, had been painted white. There's light coming through it, something from outside that was almost yellow like before.

"And even though I wanted to run away, I had to keep walking until I finally reached the door and when I pushed it open, there was a man sitting in a chair, facing the door–he never looked the same, his face was always different–and he never–"

She stops, her voice quaking slightly as she lets out a slow breath, before saying, "It had no eyes. _He_ had no eyes."

He pulls one of her hands up to his lips and kisses her fingers and palm gently, and he could feel her slowly relaxing under and against him. He can just barely hear the waves smacking against the side of the Rogue as they rocked the boat gently. He tries to run his fingers through her hair in time with each wave.

Almost in a whisper she says, "He'd try to speak but by then I was already screaming myself awake. I…"

She rolls her body so her ear's pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, as the hand he'd had on her stomach moves to petting her side. He can't see her eyes, but he knows that this nightmare is something that still bothers her–hell, she probably still has this same nightmare today.

"I had that nightmare all the time when I was in the hos–when I thought I was crazy." She says quietly.

He pulls her gently up to kiss her, rolling so that she's under him, and mumbled between kisses, "You're safe here. You're safe with me."

After she dies, he starts having her nightmare.

Only he's forced to listen to what the eye-less man says.

"You lied."


	18. Chapter 18

Sequel to "It Had No Eyes"

She's been back for a few months now, and almost as soon as she was back, they were back to how they had been. Granted, it was a bit different, since they were a good day's sail away from any sort of land so they had a a great deal more privacy than what they'd had previously.

She spent most of her days on the deck of the Rouge, sunbathing and reading and just existing on his boat, in his bed, and in his arms.

She was okay. She was with him.

He had hoped that with her return, so would sleep, and that the nightmare–her nightmare–of the eyeless man, would finally leave him be.

But it didn't.

If anything, it was as if her return made the nightmare more aggravated, and like it wanted to punish him more. The man had gone from passively sitting in the chair and accusing him, to attacking him–forearm pressed to his throat as he was slammed back against a wall. He screamed in his face, his breath smelling of onions and cigarettes, and he was forced to look in the gaping chasms in his skull where his eyes should have been. He never really remembers what he yells at him, but he knows that he always wakes up with the fear of him being right.

He always sat up quickly, gasping awake, and would immediately turn towards her, to make sure she was still there. She always was. Whatever the eyeless man in his dream was capable of, he could never take Jennifer away from him again.

He tried to keep his waking up in the middle of the night from waking Jennifer, and always wondered into the stateroom to collect himself. He got away with it for a few nights before Jennifer finally wondered out to find him.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his bottle of bourbon and debating on a third glass, when he heard the door to his room open. He looked up to see her yawning and rubbing her eye as she padded out of the room. She was wearing one of his shirts (he wondered if she even bothered unpacking her own shirts to sleep in or if his were all she wanted to wear anyway), and her hair was adorably rumpled from sleep.

"Duke?" she rasped before clearing her throat and trying again, "What's goin' on?"

He leaned back into the bench of the breakfast nook, shaking his head, "Nothing, love; go back to bed, I'll be there soon."

She kept walking to him before she finally settled into his lap, resting her head in the crook of his neck, "You've been doing this a lot since I got back. Is something wrong? Did…did I do something?"

He rubbed her back gently and shook his head, "No. No, you didn't–I just can't sleep is all."

She grabbed the hand that had come to rest on her legs and started to play with it lightly, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He sighed, watching her small hands knead his, before finally lacing their fingers together, "You remember that nightmare you told me about? About the eyeless man?"

She nodded, he didn't miss the tension that sprang up in her shoulders at the mention of it, as he continued, "After you died it…it was like it was transferred to me. And…and instead of waking up before he can say anything, he called me a liar for not protecting you and lately he's gotten much more vocal about what I've done wrong."

She didn't say anything at first until, almost as an after thought, he added, "I don't remember what he says but I know I'm afraid that he's right."

"He's not." She said, firmly. She shifted so she could look at him before holding his face in her hands, "It's a dream, Duke. It's something in your head that you can control–and that eyeless _dick_ doesn't know you like I do. He's wrong. What ever he says about you, whatever he makes you believe about yourself, know that he's wrong. Nothing that happened to me was your fault. You _found_ me, remember? _You_ brought me back."

He rested his hand on her wrist, studying her intently and so amazed at how completely _certain_ she was about what she was telling him. She kissed him, slow, deep, and thorough, before climbing to her feet and pulling him up with her, "Now let's go to bed. And if that eyeless motherfucker shows up again, I'll have a few words for him."

He grinned as she led him back to their room, "You swear a lot when you've been woken in the middle of the night."

"It's my repressed anger bubbling forth," she smiled over her shoulder at him, "I try to only let it out late at night so I don't hurt anyone."

"Well I like it. I could stand to hear more swearing Jennifer Mason," she just laughed at him before crawling into bed next to him.

She curled into his side, her head resting on his chest, "You okay?"

He kissed her head, "I will be."

That was the first night he slept through the night in a long time.


	19. Chapter 19

Prompt: Small birds, dry grass Takes place in Long Distance!AU

"Tell me what you saw today." She says at the start of every conversation. Some times it's in a whispered voice, heavy with exhaustion from a long day of hearing her own voice too much and ready to hear his. Some times it's lively, full of curiosity and excitement at the world he's seen. But no matter how she asks, it's always his favorite.

He can almost see her every time she asks, curled up in that big bed–their bed–her small body trying to wrap itself around his pillow with the phone pressed to her ear as if she were trying to force her way through it to him.

He lies back from sitting at the edge of his bed–no bed is ever the same without her next to him–and waits for the dial tone to stop, and to hear the question again.

He never has to wait long.

"There you are," She breathes into the phone, a smile clear in her tone, and he doesn't try not to smile back at his phone.

"Here I am." He says back, adjusting slightly against the mattress and kicking off his shoes.

"Tell me what you saw today." She sighs, as if she were doing the same thing as him from thousands of miles away.

He tells her about the city he's in, the attractions and advertisements that kept flashing and demanding his attention as he walked, the people he heard and passed.

She listens, she laughs, she groans, and before long, Duke turns it to her.

"Tell me what you saw today." He says, something in the words makes them feel strange coming out of his mouth, as if the question isn't his to ask.

"Oh." She replies, uncertainty in her voice. A pause falls over them as she seems to be thinking about it.

Finally, carefully, her voice creeps across the line to curl up next to him, "I went for a walk. Or, well, I guess I went for a trek. I walked until I was well outside of city limits and I started getting into farm territory."

"I've heard that's dangerous–wear the wrong plaid and you'll anger rival farm gangs." Duke jokes over the phone.

He can almost hear her eye roll, "Well you, Audrey, and Nathan would know that better than me."

He laughs back, conceding, "You're probably right."

She giggles with him before she continues, "The sky was so blue and the sun was so impossibly hot. It's been dry here for the last couple of weeks–the grass was so tall and brown by the road. The wind rushed over it making it look like the waves of the ocean I'd left behind. But I could hear birds singing in it, all clamoring over each other–probably clinging desperately to the stalks of the grass as the wind knocked them around. I could almost hear the other half of their flock singing back from the other side of the field."

He closes his eyes to imagine where she was.

"And then," She continues quietly, "something spooked all of them so they all took off–from both sides of the field. They called to each other as they met and reformed their flock high above my head, and when they came back together–oh Duke, I wish you could've seen it."

"I am." He says quietly over the line, eyes still closed as he imagined a great flock of birds split and reforming as they flew–form constantly changing and adjusting as they flew higher and higher.

"When will you be home?" she asks carefully. No matter how the conversation starts, or what else they talk about, it always comes back to this. And more often than not, he wishes he had a real answer for her.

"Soon, Jennifer." He answers, seeing her pull her lips into her mouth so it forms a straight line like she does when she's thinking something she's not sure how to express.

"I miss you."

The words land on his chest, almost thumping against it.

"I know." He replies, saying quickly back, "I miss you."

There's a pause where he knows she wants to tell him to hurry back, to come home as soon as he can, to come back to her.

But all she says is, "I love you."

It's the first time she's said it–at least out loud, he knows it's always there in what she says and does for him–but to _hear_ it…

"Now why would you say that when I can't kiss you?" He asks, smiling.

He hears her breathy laugh on the other end of the phone, "Consider it incentive to get back to me as soon as you can."

"Hell of an incentive."

"Only if it works."

There's another pause, as he forms the words silently in his mouth a few times as if they're words in another language that his mouth isn't made to use.

Then, just when she thinks she's lost him, just when she's about to fall asleep, she hears, "I love you."

Her smile is so wide and so big it makes her cheeks hurt.

"Come home, Sailor."


	20. Chapter 20

Prompt: You broke off your engagement with your long-time boyfriend/girlfriend who you were supposed to bring home to meet your family so now you need me to pretend to be them au

Duke had gotten her rather inebriated call at around four that afternoon, and couldn't make it to her place until about six. So when he knocked on her door and heard loud crashing just on the other side of the door, he wasn't all together surprised.

Concerned, but surprise had sort of left long before he'd headed for her apartment.

Luckily, the door was unlocked so he opened it to see Jennifer slumped against the far wall, a bottle of strawberry flavored vodka in her hand and a smile on her face.

"Hey!" She greeted, all wide smiles and grand hand gestures, "You got the door open!"

"Yes I did." Duke smiled at her. He crossed the room to her–carefully, seeing as the living room looked at if a war had happened in it, with stray books, pieces of clothing, and what looks like more than a few broken pieces of flatware. When he reached her, he crouched in front of her, tucking a strand of hair out of her face and behind her ear and smiling back at her when she moved her head with his hand to look up at him and smile, and took the bottle of vodka from her, "And what have you been up to, dear?"

She rolled her head from her right to her left in a wide head shake so she could look at him as he set the vodka bottle to the side, "Oh Duke. You're so great. Why couldn't I have been engaged to _you_?"

"We ask ourselves that question everyday." He smiled at her before standing and holding his hands down for her to take so he could help her to her feet, "But it does make one ask–why you didn't call the _actual_ man you're engaged to?"

She let herself be pulled up, only to sway into his arms as she went, and mumbled, "Jason's been cheating on me."

She stumbled out of his arms towards the kitchen, leaving Duke to nervously rub at the back of his neck, "Oh."

She turned back to him, a dangerous fire in her eyes, "'Oh'? _'Oh'_? Jesus, did _everyone_ but me know?"

Duke grabbed at the air for a moment before going, "Well ' _everyone_ ' is so many people–"

"Oh my _God._ " She moaned, slumping against the counter. She continued to lament into her arms on the counter, "Oh my God oh my god–and I was going to introduce him to my _family_ this weekend and spend a week with them at the lake! And he was going to–oh my _God_!"

"Aw, Jen," Duke said gently, crossing the room again to stand next to her at the counter. He rubbed her back, "It can't be that bad, can it? So you just tell them it didn't work out–what's the worst that can happen?"

"I spend basically two weeks with my family giving me sympathetic looks and trying to fix me up with my cousin's former roommate's ex or something equally convoluted." Jennifer commented, sitting up slightly.

"Where's that bottle of vodka?" She asked, starting to move from the counter.

Duke wrapped his arm around her shoulders, "No no no,"

"Yes yes yes, he's my friend." She protested, weakly trying to get out of his arms.

"No he's not." Duke said, turning her towards her room, "The bed is your friend. C'mon, let's go."

"Duke I am so fucked–how am I going to explain this to my parents?" She let herself be led towards her room.

"I'd open with 'Turns out my fiancé was a cheating bastard but the good news is that I learned that _before_ I met him at the alter.'" Duke tried to help.

She narrowed her eyes at him, tripping over a book for a moment, "Be serious."

"As a heart attack." Duke said solemnly, opening the door to her room and setting her on her bed.

She started lying down, pulling a blanket around herself as she went, "Oh what am I gonna _do_?"

Duke shrugged and tucked her in, "You'll figure something out, dear, you're smart like that."

Jennifer sighed as Duke kissed her forehead. He was about to leave when she grabbed his hand, "You could be Jason."

Duke gave her a confused look, "What?"

She sat up more in her bed, " _You_ could be Jason. I mean, you don't have to _be_ Jason, they don't really know him or anything about him–but you could be my fiancé!"

Duke shook his head, "That is a _terrible_ idea."

"Oh c'mon, Duke!" She said, sitting up completely in her bed, suddenly shockingly sober, "You're great! And no one knows me better than you! We could be engaged!"

"Jennifer _no_." Duke shook his head, gently pushing her back into her bed.

"Duke _please_?" She asked desperately, grabbing at his shirt and hitting him with her heart-melting Bambi-esque doe eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down onto the bed with her, "Please please _please_? I can't face my family fiancé-less! I'll never live it down! And it doesn't have to mean anything–we just smile and greet family members and answer questions–c'mon, you're a con man! You lie to people for a living! How is this any different?"

 _'Cause it's_ you, he thought, but bit his tongue. He looked at her doe eyes and sighed, "Fine! Fine. Just get some sleep, we'll talk more about it in the morning."

She squealed and hugged him tightly, pulling back down again and kissing his cheek, "Oh thank you thank you thank you, Duke!"

"Yeah yeah," He chuckled, gently pushing her off and back into the mattress. He kissed her forehead, "We'll talk in the morning."


	21. Chapter 21

This was for Compactor's birthday last year but since they're so short I don't think she'll mind that they're just here. Prompt: Jennifer writing dumb messages for Duke in the fog on the mirror after her shower so that when he takes his, he sees her message and smiles

She had done it long before they ever started sharing a bed.

His shower was the only one on the boat, so she'd slowly (and very carefully) started to leave a few of her own things in the cramped space. She was so careful about keeping her things together, as if she were afraid he would see her things as an intrusion and she wanted to keep her invasion into his space as minimal as possible. He'd tried to tell her that the shower was a common space, and that she wasn't intruding, but it would be another week before she actually seemed to take him up on the offer.

And even then it was as small as simply leaving her toothbrush on the edge of the sink.

Eventually, and thankfully, she became even more comfortable on the Rouge and around him. They fell into a routine of sorts—she was a bit of an early riser, compared to him so part of their routine became that when she was ready to shower, she'd knock on his door, he'd grab a pillow and a blanket, and he'd move to couch in the stateroom to sleep a bit longer. When she was done, she'd pad out of his room, all smiles and clean smelling, and whisper a "thank you" to him that he'd only mumble back at in his sleep.

A few minutes would pass and then Duke would eventually give up on trying to sleep, and shower himself. Once finished, he stood in his bathroom, rubbing a towel on his head to try to dry his hair. When he looked at the mirror, he noticed that there was something written on his mirror. Not in ink, of course, but in the fog that his shower caused to show up on the mirror itself. She'd written him a message with her fingers on his mirror, just a simple, "Have a good day! Be safe!" with a stupidly cute heart next to a "J".

He couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face at the message.

Not a bad way to start the day if he was being honest.


	22. Chapter 22

This was for Compactor's birthday last year but since they're so short I don't think she'll mind that they're just here. Prompt: "…Are you proposing to me?"

She was sleeping next to him, curled into his side with her head on his chest and her arms wrapping around his waist. She was twitching slightly in her sleep—it didn't seem to be from a particularly _bad_ dream, just in reaction to whatever her mind was showing her, but something about her twitching let him know that it wasn't a particularly _good_ dream either.

He hadn't been as lucky as her to fall asleep almost as soon as they were under the covers. For now, he was more than content to watch her sleep, and hope that soon enough her peacefulness would start to influence him.

He kept his hand moving at a consistent pace up and down her back, mumbling, "It's okay, Jen, sh, I'm here."

She sighed in her sleep, a small pained sound escaping her throat as she tightened her grip around him. Even in her sleep she was still finding ways to assure herself that he was real and there, the time spent a part from each other never far enough in the past for either of them to truly forget.

He rubbed the arm that was wrapped around his middle with his free hand and kissed her forehead, "Sh, Jennifer. It's just a dream. Come back to me."

Slowly, she started to wake up, saying his name, "Duke?"

"I'm here, love, I'm right here." He assured her, moving his hand from her back to being wrapped around her. He smoothed her hair away from her face with his free hand, cradling her face as he placed another kiss on her forehead as her hand came to rest over his on her cheek. She sighed out his name, her eyes not really opening in the dark as a reassurance for herself that she was out of whatever dream she was having.

"I…I thought…" she mumbled, before burying her face into his chest, "I think I was remembering some of the stuff that the black goo made me think was happening."

"Like what?" Duke asked.

He couldn't see her face clearly, but he could tell that she was chewing on her lip in thought before she finally answered, "The stuff I thought you said to me. About Audrey and…and me, about me being crazy. But this time my head took it further and made it so…so that you actually _did_ do those things and—,"

"Stop." He said gently, moving his hand to tilt her head up to look at him, "Just stop. Jennifer, that is _never_ going to happen."

She nodded, "I know."

"Apparently not." Duke replied, trying to smile at her, "Jennifer I—I haven't had the best of luck with people. In any relationship. Not really anyway. But I—but with you everything just—you make me happy, Jennifer. Happier than I'd ever thought I'd be and…well, I mean, I know we've only just come back together after all this time apart but I'd—I'd like to try—,"

"Are you proposing to me?" Jennifer interrupted, over the course of his rambling, she'd become decidedly more awake and was now looking up at him wide eyed as she sat up to look into his eyes.

He laughed nervously at her, "Well, I'm fucking _trying_ to!"

Even in the dark, Duke could tell that her eyes lit up at that—and the way she threw herself at him helped to clear up any confusion he could've had about her reception of his proposal.

"Is that a 'yes'?" Duke laughed, rolling with her so that she was over him.

"Depends; what's the ring look like?" She smirked down at him.

His hand fumbled briefly over the top of his nightstand table until he opened the drawer to pull out a small velvet box. He placed it on his chest and opened it to reveal the diamond ring inside it.

"Damn!" She said, letting herself lie on top of him to pull the ring out of the box and slide it on to her finger.

He wrapped his arms around her to hold her securely against him, "D'ya like it?"

"Duke it's—!" She started to say, before looking back at him, eyes bright in a smile, "I almost feel like I should ask if there's a diamond smuggler we're going to owe a favor or two to pay back this thing—it's huge!"

"'We'?" He asked, already liking the sound of that—of being a 'we' with Jennifer.

She smirked, slipping into her Boston accent, "Ain't no one gonna put the screws on my man so's long as I'm 'round."

He laughed and rolled her back over onto her back so that he was over her, mimicking her accent back to her, "Yeah, see? Ain't nobody gonna fuck with my old lady."

She laughed back and pulled him down to kiss him. He settled his weight on her gently as the kiss ended and pressed his forehead to hers, "So am I going to get to call you Mrs. Crocker? Or am I going to have to give back the ring back to that diamond smuggler?"

"It was always going to be 'yes,' Duke." She said gently and seriously, touching his face to try to impress how sincerely she meant what she'd said and was going to say, "I love you."

Duke kissed her back with everything he had.


	23. Chapter 23

Prompt: "Are you jealous?" Set in the Ink and Petals Universe

Holly says, cutting Jennifer off in the middle of her mild rant about how she hadn't seen Duke in a month _even though_ he apparently had plenty of time for grabbing lunch with Viri from next door–"And it's not as if we aren't _both_ his neighbors! Or that he couldn't ask _both_ of us to lunch!"–with a tilt in her voice that makes Jennifer want to punch her.

She tries to answer quickly and fails, "Yes–what?! No! Why–?!"

Holly laughs at her, and that makes the starting blush in Jennifer's cheeks bloom further.

Holly reaches out and pokes her in the cheek, still grinning and still in the thralls of her laughter, "Oh my god look at how red you are!"

Jennifer bats her hand away, "Shut up!"

"You are so jealous!" Holly keeps laughing, reaching out and poking her in her dimple piercings, "Oh my god! I gotta go tell Tina."

Holly she turns to go back to her and Tina's rooms at the back of the shop to tell her about how "jealous" their boss was about where and who with the florist next door was spending his free time. Jennifer slouches against the front counter and continues to try to not think about how much time Duke had been spending with Viri.

Or Cadence.

Or Adelaide.

Or Celli and Abra.

Or Dwight.

Or Audrey and Nathan.

Or anyone else that wasn't _her_.

And she certainly wasn't _jealous_.

Duke was just her friend is all–a very good friend whom Jennifer had gotten used to having mostly to herself–and she missed hanging out with him. It felt like it'd been forever since they'd talked last–and okay, sure, some of it had to do with her being busy with the resurgence of her former clientele numbers, and him the same, but that didn't mean they couldn't still talk!

And besides, if he was going to take someone out to lunch, why _wouldn't_ he take her instead of Viri?

She sighed heavily.

Okay, so maybe she was a little jealous.

But that was fine, maybe then she could get to the reason for _why_ she was jealous.

Just as she's about to finally start sussing out her reason for being jealous, though, the door jingles open, and in Duke walks, all smiles and a doggy bag of lunch from Cadence's.

"I figured you'd be hungry." He grins, setting the food down on the counter in front of her. He turns back to her and holds his arms wide for her, "And it's come to my attention that I haven't had a chance to talk to you in a month; you better give me a hug and tell me everything I missed."

She lets a laugh bubble out of her as she hugs him.

Something warm rises in her chest and belly as she does, just like it did when she saw him through the display windows and when she heard his voice, but she doesn't think about it.

Or about how it might be tied to why she was jealous.


	24. Chapter 24

Prompt: Little John not wanting to leave Jennifer alone in her third trimester, combined with "Forgetting why it mattered"

Jennifer had been…well the only word that came to mind was "cranky" but Duke was not going to be the man to call her that. And she had been that way for the passed week. Duke understood why, of course, she was well into her third trimester and she was incredibly uncomfortable in her own skin. Add in that it was Christmas and she'd told him that Christmas had been hard for her since her mother passed, and it was just a perfect storm of unhappy.

Her feet were too swollen for her to do much of anything besides waddle (and god save you if you use _that_ word) around the Rouge between the couch and the bed. She did weak laps around the Rouge when she could, but it wasn't as often as she'd like, and they weren't nearly as long as the walks she used to go on with Little John, her behemoth Great Dane that she'd acquired in her year away. Duke had been surprised that Little John wasn't more antsy about not going for the same length of physical activity, but the only thing that seemed to be making him anxious was Jennifer.

Little John had been glued to her side since she entered her seventh month, just constantly sniffing at her and keeping her constantly in his field of vision. If she moved or shifted for anything, Little John was there, watching her closely.

It was Christmas eve, and while Duke hated that he had to leave her, the Gull, it had been decided, would stay open until at least 7 that night–not that there would be a lot of foot traffic just before a major holiday, but nothing could be taken for granted in a town like Haven.

She was already on the couch when he walked out to the state room to take off, and she was pouting.

He braced himself on the back of couch with one hand to lean over her as she grabbed at the lapels of his jacket. Little John shifted a bit next to Jennifer, almost turning defensive, as she asked, "Do you really have to go?"

He sighed and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, "It's not for very long, I'll be back in time for _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. I promise."

She glowered at him weakly as he kissed her forehead, "I'm gonna hold you to that."

He chuckled at her and left, a begrudging, "Have a good day" following him out.

She sighed. She tried to read, she tried get comfortable, she tried to walk, to eat, to bake, to do _something_ productive. But there just wasn't anything she _could_ do, and Little John certainly wasn't helping.

Finally, about mid-afternoon, and after trying all those things again she just screamed.

Little John jumped to his feet in a panic and looked from her belly to her face.

"Dammit Little John!" She yelled, "This is…!"

She trailed off and just held her head in her hands for a moment. She wanted to not be pregnant anymore, she wanted to be useful, she wanted to do Christmas things like her mother used to do–she wanted her mom.

She was crying before she fully realized it, and by the time she did, there was no stopping it.

She wanted her mom, and to go home for Christmas, and to take Duke with her. She wanted to show him all their traditions, she wanted her mom to meet her grandchild, she wanted things to…be _right_.

 _This is unfair._

Little John whimpered quietly next to her before taking a step to her and licking her face nervously. Jennifer just wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his fur for what felt like a long time. She knew why she'd been snappish and cranky for the last week, and for one moment, she just wanted to miss her mom.

After she'd cried herself out, a song began to play in her mind, one of her mother's favorite Christmas hymns.

" _In the bleak midwinter…_ " she sang quietly to herself, running her fingers through Little John's fur.

During the second verse, the baby kicked. And Jennifer sighed. The baby kicked again and she rolled her eyes, mumbling, "Alright, alright, I get it."

She stood back up as best she could and made her way to the kitchen.

Even without her mother to be physically there celebrate one of her favorite holidays, Jennifer remembered enough of the traditions and love that she could bring her mom back in some small part. So it didn't matter that it wasn't fair that she wasn't there, what mattered was that Jennifer could do something–however small it felt to her–to bring her back.

When Duke came home that night, it was the first time he'd seen her smile in weeks.


End file.
